As the entry-level model in the OM-D series, the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III ($649.99, body only) is a mirrorless camera that has to serve several audiences, one of which are those who don't know an f-stop from a truck stop. Olympus has refined the interface to make the newest E-M10 easier to use, and offers some improvements for advanced amateurs, enthusiasts, and even pros looking for a lightweight, inexpensive camera. It does an acceptable job serving multiple audiences, but its sensor is dated and its focus system lags behind competing models. You're better off with the Sony a6000, which delivers higher-resolution images with less noise, and sports an autofocus system that runs circles around the Mark III.

Design

The Mark III looks a lot like the Mark II, with the same retro-chic finish. But there are some changes to the body, notably a deeper handgrip, larger control dials, and larger point type labeling buttons and dials. It isn't that far off in size (3.3 by 4.8 by 2.0 inches) or weight (14.5 ounces) from its predecessor (3.3 by 4.7 by 1.8 inches, 13.8 ounces), but the new grip makes it feel a bit more secure in the hand. Like others in the series, the new E-M10 is available in all black or a two-tone silver-and-black finish.

You can buy the camera as a body only for $649.99, the choice that photographers upgrading from an older Micro Four Thirds model are likely to make. But if you're new to the system you can also buy it with the svelte M.Zuiko ED 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 EZ zoom for $799.99. That's not a bad deal, as the 14-42mm EZ sells for $300 on its own.

As mentioned, the control dials are larger and more comfortable to use. On the top plate you'll find the new Shortcut button on the far left, next to the combined power switch and flash release. Three dials sit to the right of the hot shoe and flash—the standard Mode control, along with forward and rear control dials. Top buttons include the programmable Fn2 and a Record button for movies.

The Fn1 (AEL/AFL by default) button is squeezed into the top right corner of the rear plate, above the ergonomic thumb rest. Below it are four buttons—Delete, Info, Menu, and Play—flanking a four-way controller with OK at its center. Each directional press has a labeled function—Drive, Flash, Focus Area, and ISO.

The buttons are supplemented by a touch interface. The 3-inch LCD is mounted on a hinge, so it can tilt up and down to nab shots from more interesting angles, and you can tap on a part of the frame to set focus or to focus and capture an image. You'll also use the display to navigate through the menu systems—the E-M10 has an on-screen overlay to access common functions, launched via the Shortcut button, as well as a more extensive menu to configure the camera to your liking.

Shortcut is also used to change in-camera art filters or adjust scene modes. If you switch the Mode dial to one of those settings you'll be greeted with a menu of the different filters and preset modes available to you. In previous models, changing what you initially selected was a chore; now you can do it on the fly just by pressing Shortcut.

You don't have to frame shots with the rear LCD, though at 1,040k dots it's plenty sharp. The E-M10 Mark III also has a built-in viewfinder. The EVF is an OLED design, crisp thanks to a 2.36-million-dot resolution. It's not the largest you'll find in a mirrorless camera—it delivers 0.62x magnification when paired with a standard-angle lens.

Filters and Connectivity

Olympus has long put art filters into its camera line, and all of your favorites from previous models—black-and-white, selective color, soft focus, and the like—are still here, with the addition of a Bleach Bypass setting. It's easy enough to apply filters when shooting—there's an Art setting on the Mode dial and the Shortcut button is there to change the filter.

If you shoot in Raw format you can apply the filters after you've captured a shot, but it's not the most intuitive process. You'll need to select Raw Data Edit from the playback screen and then enter the ART BKT setting. This takes you to a long list, showing every filter available, which you can check or uncheck. It's great if you want to create a bunch of different versions of a shot, but a cumbersome process if simply want to apply a single filter. I'd have liked to see this interface streamlined for easier use. It would also be nice to have after-the-fact filters available for JPG shooters, even if they weren't as robust as the Raw options.

You can access some of the specialized capture modes by setting the Mode dial to AP—Advanced Photo. Here you'll find Live Bulb, Live Composite, and Live Time capture, which take a lot of the guesswork out of capturing long exposure scenes. HDR is available for scenes with dynamic lighting—though you'll have to use a tripod or set the camera on a flat surface for the best results as it requires three consecutive exposures to work. If you like to shoot architecture there's Keystone Compensation, which is a real-time effect that straightens the converging lines you get when tilting the camera up to capture an image of a tall building—this does cut the field of view of the lens.

There's a Panorama mode too, but it's not in camera. The E-M10 helps you frame shots to stitch using desktop software. That's fine for advanced users, but for the entry-level target market I'd have preferred a sweep panorama mode with in-camera stitching, a feature you find on modern smartphones. Automated focus (for extra depth of field when shooting with a macro lens) and exposure (for HDR and other tricky lighting situations) bracketing are also available, but like the Panorama mode, you'll need to combine images using software after capture when using these options.

It's almost a given at this point, but Wi-Fi is built in. The Mark III promises to support wireless file transfer and remote control to Android and iOS devices using the Olympus Image Share app. The app offers a strong remote control interface, with full manual control available and a smooth live feed from camera to phone. One thing of note: You don't get Bluetooth or NFC with this model, so you'll need to use an on-screen QR code or manually type a Wi-Fi password into your phone's settings to establish a connection.

Images are stored on a standard SD, SDHC, or SDXC memory card. In addition to the card slot, the camera includes a micro USB port (in-camera charging is not supported) and a micro HDMI connector. The Mark III uses the same battery as its predecessor, as well as the same charger. CIPA rates the camera for 330 shots per charge, or about 80 minutes of video recording.

Performance and Imaging

The E-M10 Mark III powers on and focuses quickly, in about 0.7-second, when paired with a mechanical zoom or prime lens. You'll wait a little bit longer for the first shot if you use the 14-42mm EZ lens, about 1.2 seconds, as it has to extend in order to work. In bright light the focus system is very speedy, locking on in as little as 0.05-second. It does slow in very dim conditions, to about 0.4-second.

Burst shooting is speedy if you keep focused locked for a sequence. I clocked it at 8.8fps, a bit better than the 8.6fps that Olympus promises. The Raw buffer is rather small, giving you just 12 Raw+JPG or 26 Raw shots at a time, but write times to a Lexar 300MBps memory card are very quick, just about 2 seconds, so you can grab another full burst after a short interval. If you shoot in JPG format with a fast memory card you can go as long as you want; I held the shutter button down for 30 seconds when shooting JPGs and the camera never slowed. I used a UHS-II card in testing, but the slot tops out at UHS-I speeds, so a 95MBps card is all you need.

If you want to track a moving subject you'll need to slow the camera down, to about 4fps, a bit shy of the 4.8fps promised by Olympus. The autofocus system, while offering improvements like face recognition and eye detection, still can't keep up with high-speed shooting. I found that focus in our standard moving target test was good through a sequence when our target moved toward and away from the lens at a steady rate, but it did falter with big, dramatic changes in position between shots. There are better mirrorless cameras out there for tracking fast-moving action—the Sony a6000 and Fujifilm X-T20 are a couple to look at if it's a priority for your photography.

The image sensor is still a 16MP design. It's stabilized, with 5-axis compensation for both stills and video, which means that any lens you use benefits from stabilization. You get more resolution from competing APS-C models, which are almost all 24MP now, and more expensive Micro Four Thirds cameras, which have moved to 20MP. Honestly, you probably don't need the extra pixels, but newer sensors tend to offer other image quality improvements, especially when it comes to dynamic range and high-ISO capture.

I checked the ISO performance using Imatest and found the Mark III behaves much like the Mark II, and the original E-M10 before it. It keeps noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 6400 when shooting JPGs at default settings. As for image quality, you can expect to shoot through ISO 1600 with no visible loss of quality. There's some slight smudging at ISO 3200 and 6400, but I wouldn't hesitate to use those settings. Beyond that, at ISO 12800 and 25600, images take a much more noticeable hit. If you're a JPG shooter, though, and don't venture into manual ISO control, you won't know, as the Mark III doesn't range above ISO 6400 with Auto ISO enabled.

If you shoot in Raw format you'll be able to squeeze a bit more detail out of photos at higher ISO settings, but you'll also see some more noise. Raw quality is strong through ISO 3200, but it does get quite grainy at ISO 6400. Grain is heavier at ISO 12800, but I'd still feel comfortable setting the ISO that high if a shot calls for it. I'd avoid ISO 25600, as images are very rough. It's when pushing the camera this far that more modern 24MP APS-C sensor models show a real advantage—the Fujifilm X-T20 delivers Raw output at ISO 51200 that's clearer than what the Olympus shows at ISO 25600, and while the Panasonic GX85 uses a sensor the same size and resolution as the Olympus, it ekes out a bit more detail and shows less noise when pushed to higher sensitivities.

The E-M10 Mark III offers 4K video, a common option in recent cameras, but it's hard to find. You need to switch to the dedicated Movie mode to use it, and even then you have to enable it using the Shortcut button. The frame is slightly cropped at the edges when shooting in 4K. You do get some frame rate options—24, 25, or 30fps—but you need to dive into the menu system to access them. I'm not sure why they're buried, or why you have to change into a specific video mode to shoot in 4K, especially on a model that touts ease of use.

In most modes the Mark III is limited to 1080p capture at up to 60fps; there's also a 720p30 option. The footage looks good, for 1080p—it doesn't pack the resolution or impact of 4K capture. There's no mic input, which limits the quality of audio the camera can record. Despite the limitations, video is quite crisp, and fine for casual recording. I'd look to a camera with an external microphone support for any sort of serious video work.

That's a shame, as the Mark III does give videographers some good in-camera creative options. You get access to the same Art Filters as you do with stills, and there are some in-camera editing tools—basically the ability to trim clips in-camera. That makes it easier to pull out a portion of a video to share, or to select highlights to make later sessions in iMovie go a bit more quickly.

Conclusions

The Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III doesn't have a lot of head-turning new features—the addition of 4K video is the biggest upgrade. Other changes—improved ergonomics, faster processing and focus, and better results when shooting in automatic mode—are smaller, but they are there. The elephant in the room is the camera's aging image sensor. I don't think most casual shooters need more than 16MP, but they will benefit from other improvements we've seen in the latest round of 24MP APS-C chips and the newer 20MP Micro Four Thirds sensor that Olympus uses in pricier models, notably image quality in dim light.

I'd also have liked to have seen the promise of ease of use go a bit further. The camera's art filters are a lot of fun, and can give shots a different look, but adding them after you've shot an image is clunky and requires you to shoot in Raw mode. Smartphone owners used to being able to add an Instagram filter to any shot will recognize this as a shortcoming. Likewise, the lack of in-camera panorama stitching is a bummer. It's something you can do easily with a smartphone.

The E-M10 Mark III does deliver much better image quality than a flagship smartphone. But if Olympus, and other camera makers, want to court young photographers who have cut their teeth with iPhones and Instagram, they need to do more than say a camera is easy to use. Interface improvements and refinements are supposed to be the story here, and while the Shortcut button and improved automatic operation are benefits over the Mark II, the interface isn't fully baked. That's not why I'm rating the E-M10 Mark III a bit lower than its predecessor, however. It scores lower because it's standing still when it comes to image quality and tracking autofocus, while other models that sell for the same or less deliver more.

I still recommend photographers looking for a camera in this price range get the Sony a6000; it's three years old now, but packs a 24MP image sensor that, while no longer class-leading, is still a bit better than the 16MP sensor we see here, and shoots at a blistering 11.1fps rate with tracking—and it sells for the same price with a lens that the E-M10 Mark III does without. You can also opt go with an SLR; if you do, the Nikon D3400 is the best entry-level choice, but understand that its video autofocus system isn't nearly as good as you get from a mirrorless camera.

Other mirrorless options in this price and feature range are more similar to the E-M10 Mark III in performance and image quality: the Panasonic G7 and GX85 both sport 16MP Micro Four Thirds sensors, and, while supplies last, the E-M10 Mark II is still available.

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About the Author

Lead camera analyst for the PCMag consumer electronics reviews team, Jim Fisher is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he concentrated on documentary video production. Jim's interest in photography really took off when he borrowed his father's Hasselblad 500C and light meter in 2007. He honed his writing skills at retailer B&H... See Full Bio

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III

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